Stephen Carlson wrote:Thanks for starting threads about this, but I don't have the book. I'm not sure I can contribute much, except on peripheral issues.

Now that I have book (thanks!), I feel I can comment a little more.

Paul-Nitz wrote:Campbell gives a brief run-down of major figures in the study of Ancient Greek and/or linguistics.

This chapter feels like a box checking exercise to me. I'm not sure what the point of it except that someone decided that a history of scholarship is desired and that's what we have, but the chapter is too short and the selection is too idiosyncratic to be of much use. From the choice of linguistics, one gets the strong feeling that it was written by an outsider pointing out the linguistics who may be mentioned from time-to-time in the cul-de-sac of New Testament scholarship. Someone working within linguistics would have made a very different selection. So many important people are overlooked. Frankly, I think the book would have better to drop the chapter and use the space for something else.

1888: William Rainey Harper 1856-1906 († 50): Est. Univ. Chicago. Prodigy. Graduated college at age 14. Hebrew main interest. Wrote “An Inductive Greek Method” and another for Hebrew. Adult education interest - correspondence courses. [Not necessarily a linguist and not mentioned in Campbell’s book, but an interesting figure in the pedagogy of Greek].

1898: Ernest DeWitt Burton 1856-1925 († 69): Chicago. “Exegetical” approach, essentially synchronic and a departure from diachronic, preempting Saussure’s distinction. Agemates with and followed William Harper Rainey as President of the Univ. Chicago.

Stephen Carlson wrote:This chapter feels like a box checking exercise to me. I'm not sure what the point of it except that someone decided that a history of scholarship is desired and that's what we have, but the chapter is too short and the selection is too idiosyncratic to be of much use. From the choice of linguistics, one gets the strong feeling that it was written by an outsider pointing out the linguistics who may be mentioned from time-to-time in the cul-de-sac of New Testament scholarship. Someone working within linguistics would have made a very different selection. So many important people are overlooked. Frankly, I think the book would have better to drop the chapter and use the space for something else.

Three weeks ago, the thread moderator asked an apt follow-up question (in blue) to Dr. Carlson's comments (in orange).
I would like to second that solicitation for Dr. Carlson's specific reply, or for anyone else who might agree that Campbell's list is lacking. Thank you.

Adam Balshan wrote:I would like to second that solicitation for Dr. Carlson's specific reply, or for anyone else who might agree that Campbell's list is lacking. Thank you.

One difficulty in making such a list is that the names vary based who you'd want to give the list to and why you're writing it to begin with. Campbell's list feels (I'm not in his head to say if it actually is) ad hoc without much rhyme or reason behind. Names like Firth and Pike are interesting for people who study linguistics and its history, but aren't remotely relevant for someone looking at the intersection of Greek & linguistics. Similarly, Saussure continues to be relevant, but not for the traditional reasons (and the traditional reasons are wrong anyway). Rather Saussure is relevant because of his contributions to the study and reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European. And that puts him in the same camp of relevance as Boop, Blass, and Wackernagel.

Simon Dik should be on the list because of his influence over the Dutch Classicists in the 1980s and 1990s (and those Dutch Classicists should be there, too).